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Information accurate as of December 2025. Please be aware that CalMatters is not continuously updating this story. 

What Is CARE Court?

CARE, which stands for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment, is a court-based way to deliver mental health and substance use treatment to Californians struggling with a severe mental illness. The program launched in a handful of California counties in October 2023, and rolled out in the entire state in December 2024.

Who Is CARE Court For?

To be eligible for CARE Court, someone must be diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, or another similar psychotic disorder. They must be 18 years old, and not already receiving adequate mental health care.

Starting on Jan. 1, the program will expand to include people who experience psychotic symptoms as a result of bipolar disorder.

Who Can Refer Someone Into CARE Court?

One thing that makes CARE Court unique is that it’s not just doctors who can refer someone into the program – family members, EMTs and others also have that ability.

A petition for CARE Court can be filed by a person’s immediate family (parents, siblings, grandparents or children) or by their roommate. First responders (law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, crisis response teams and homeless outreach workers) can also file petitions, as can hospitals and other behavioral health providers. If someone is in a conservatorship, the public guardian can file a petition to move the person down from conservatorship into CARE Court. And the court can refer someone into CARE Court if they have been charged with a misdemeanor.

Someone can also file a petition for themselves, known as a self-petition.

How Do You File a Petition?

First, fill out a CARE Court petition, available here. You must also fill out a mental health declaration (available here), or provide evidence that the person was held for intensive treatment at least twice, including once in the past 60 days.

Next, file the paperwork with the correct division in your county courthouse. In some places, you can do that electronically. Otherwise, make three copies of each form and either bring them to the courthouse in person, or mail them.

The court will then determine if the petition meets its requirements. If the petition is accepted, whoever filed the petition must appear at the first court hearing, at which point the court will decide if the person can participate in CARE Court.

Then What Happens?

If someone is accepted into CARE Court, the court orders the county to work with them on a voluntary “CARE agreement,” which can include mental health and substance abuse treatment, housing, and other services, as needed. The CARE Court participant is represented by counsel during this process – often a public defender. Then, the participant attends regular court hearings for the next year to report on their progress, bring up questions or complaints, or request different or additional services.

If they cannot reach a CARE agreement, the court can order a CARE plan (see below).

After one year, the participant can either graduate from the program or continue for up to one more year.

Can CARE Court Force Someone Into Treatment?

No, not really. When Gov. Newsom first proposed the program in 2022, he said it would come with ways to hold participants accountable if they didn’t follow through with their treatment. But coercive treatment is controversial, after the country’s troubled history of locking patients in psychiatric hospitals led to the mass closure of those facilities in the 1950s and 1960s.

Participants in the program can sign up for a voluntary “CARE agreement,” through which they can get access to housing, mental health care and other services. If they refuse, a judge can impose a court-ordered “CARE plan.” But that’s very rare. So far, judges have ordered CARE plans just 22 times throughout the entire state. Some counties have eschewed CARE plans altogether, preferring instead to make the program entirely voluntary.

Even if a judge does order a CARE plan, the program has no teeth to enforce the order. Clinicians cannot force CARE Court participants to take medication, nor can a participant be punished for refusing medication. If someone fails to complete an ordered CARE plan, the court could put them on a path to conservatorship, according to the state.

This story was reported with support from the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.